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Small Business + Small Marketing = Really Big Losses

(NOTE: This is a guest post written by Entrepreneur and marketing guru Danny Iny — Co-Founder and CEO of Firepole Marketing. Learn more about Danny at the end of his article.)

A lot of entrepreneurs have a problem with marketing.

~It isn’t that they don’t understand it. ~It isn’t that they’re afraid to try new things and step out of their comfort zone. ~It isn’t that they’re unwilling to invest time and money into it. ~It isn’t that they refuse to seek the advice of experts.

The problem is that it’s too simple.

Now, that may not sound like a problem, but believe me, it is.

Simple, you see, isn’t the same thing as easy. Some things look easy – like setting up a Facebook page, or creating a Twitter account. But unless you have a strategy to guide you in using these tools and platforms – one that’s a part of your larger business plan – then no quantity of likes or tweets will get you closer to your goals than you are today.

That being said, at its core, marketing is very simple. You have a great product or service, and you communicate that to the people who really need it. Simple.

But not easy.

And because of that, gurus and self-proclaimed experts are a dime a dozen. In many cases, they’re “marketing plumbers” – people who have been lucky with one technique, and are now claiming they can change your whole world, if you just pay for their training, their product, or their consulting services.

As an entrepreneur, this becomes a very real problem because every expert you’re exposed to is talking about just one tiny piece of the marketing puzzle, in isolation – which, very naturally, showcases their idea as the best way to go about your marketing. And so tactics subsume strategy, to the point that entrepreneurs think the tactics they’ve adopted *are* a strategy – but they aren’t.

Of course, this approach is doomed to failure. You can use every brilliant tactic in the book, and still get nowhere if you aren’t using them correctly.

Because those tactics, in isolation, are small marketing.

“Small Marketing” vs. “Big Marketing”

Small marketing is an add-on to your business; you’re already an expert at what you do, what you offer, how you distribute it, and how much you charge. Now all that’s left is marketing to get the word out, and get customers in the door. So in this view, marketing looks like…

Website copy and email marketing campaigns…

Pay-per-click ads and search engine optimization…

Brochures, flyers, and other print materials…

Ad campaigns and conversion funnels…

And the list goes on, and on, and on.

The trouble is that – even though some of these things are likely to be very important to your business – *none* of these things are what marketing is really about.

The opposite of “small marketing” is “big marketing”.

Big marketing is almost indistinguishable from business strategy. It’s about figuring out who will be the ONE perfect customer for you, and what you need to offer them that they will absolutely adore. It’s getting their attention, and locking them into a cycle of commitment and reward that will turn them into avid, loyal customers.

Small marketing isn’t just incomplete – in the absence of proper “big marketing”, it is completely meaningless… kind of like a chef arguing about the merits of this or that ingredient, without ever mentioning the recipe or the diner!

So the problem is that marketing is simple, but there’s good news, too.

Ready?

The good news is that marketing is simple.

And as long as you’re learning from someone who actually understands how marketing works – big marketing, that is – to advance your business goals, it isn’t all that difficult to get your head around.

There are only three steps to effective marketing, each of which ties into elements of your overall business plan. A common misconception is that a marketing plan is somehow separate from your business plan – as if your marketing doesn’t’ have anything to do with your mission or your model or your pricing. Of course, this isn’t true. As an entrepreneur, you need to be on top of linking the elements of marketing into your wider business strategy and plan.

The three elements of successful big picture marketing are ALIGNMENT, ATTRACTION, and ENGAGEMENT. Let’s explore them one by one – both how they fit into your big picture plans, and what tactics you can use to put them all into practice:

Alignment: A Match Made in Heaven

The first step to effective marketing is to create a perfect fit between the people you’re trying to reach and the offer that you’re trying to make. This is another one of those “easier said than done” pieces of advice, but it all starts with one step.

The very first thing you need to do is identify the absolutely perfect customer for your product or service. Who is it that has the more painful problem you can solve? And who is going to be receptive to your message, enthusiastic about your offer, and eager to tell their friends about the experience you create?

It’s important to be as specific as possible when fleshing out this “customer profile” because once you have an idea of who they are, you start tailoring your offer to speak directly to them. Aligning what you offer with who you’re offering it to takes 90% of the guesswork out of your marketing.

This fits into your overall business strategy because when you know who you’re trying to reach, their values, wants and needs will all help to shape the foundations of your business. Your mission and vision statements (if you have them) should be tailored to talk to *them*, and not to some disinterested third party. Your promotion, distribution and pricing will all be influenced by the tastes and requirements of the person most likely (and happy!) to work with you.

Attraction: Now That You Know Who You’re Dealing With

Once you’ve achieved that perfect fit, you need to grab the attention of your target audience. This is as much an art as a science, and it’s where most of the “small marketing” tactics come into play.

Since you have such a good idea of who your ideal customer is, and that what you’re offering them is right for them, it becomes a matter of identifying where they are most likely to encounter you and your message – both on- and offline.

Some people spend more time on Twitter, others on Facebook, others on a host of other social media sites. Some people read newspapers, some listen to the radio, some prefer watching videos and some like getting an old-fashioned letter in the mail.

How you go about attracting the attention of your audience is going to seriously influence your advertising, your customer service, your online and offline presences, your distribution model, and even the way in which you choose to accept payment.

Are you starting to see how it all ties together?

Engagement: Cycles of Commitment and Reward

This is the secret weapon of the most successful marketers, and I promise, it works just as well for entrepreneurs and small business owners. It goes a little bit like this:

You’ve gotten the attention of your target audience, so now you need to encourage them to take a step towards becoming a lifelong customer. You can’t just come right out and ask for it though – it’s too soon for that, and it would be a little like asking someone to marry you after one good date.

What you do instead is ask for a small commitment, like joining your mailing list, or becoming a fan on Facebook. Once they make that step, you reward them with something beyond their expectations. A brilliant free report or manifesto, exclusive blog posts, access to a network, or even access to *you* – anything that makes the time and effort they put in seem like a fantastically good bargain.

Next, you ask for a bigger commitment – maybe offer a free sample or trial, after you reward them with an amazing experience enjoying your offer. In all cases, the value that you give them must dramatically exceed the risk that they took.

Finally (and you do this as many times as necessary to establish trust) you ask them to make the ultimate commitment, which is to actually buy something from you – and when they do, you give it your all to make sure they have the absolute best experience you can deliver.

Of course it doesn’t end after the first purchase – the cycle of commitment and reward can be used again and again for the entirety of the customer lifespan.

This is where your business plan and marketing plan really mesh and become one. Everything you do should be designed to make this cycle better and more efficient for you and your customers – which means that pretty much every part of your business will be informed by this pattern.

You see? It’s all very simple – but none of it is easy.

Start at the beginning, learn from people you trust (who have excellent relationships with their customers!) and remember that this is your business – you get to make these decisions. At the end of the day, you have to rely on yourself and your customers to be successful, and the best way to do that is to understand them, understand yourself, and understand the marketing process (big marketing!) as it relates to your business as a whole.

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) is the Co-Founder and CEO of Firepole Marketing, and the Co-Author (with Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, and many others) of Engagement from Scratch! (available on Amazon, or as a free download). Please reach out to Danny if this has been helpful to you as an entrepreneur.

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Nice post. The mistake I see most often is a failure to identify that one ideal customer. For some reason, small businesses think they will miss out on opportunities if they focus and create their messaging for a specific reader. Instead they create a vague message that doesn’t really speak to anyone.

If fact, they do let this thinking infect their overall business plans and often create a product or service that doesn’t fully address the pains of any particular customer.

Great article Danny! I really appreciate your thoughts on finding the ONE person. From what I’ve seen this is where a lot of people go wrong. They think their product or service is for everyone, and unless they’re Amazon or Walmart, it won’t work.

Good point, I know people who try to boycott Walmart! And I’m sure there’s some people in retail who wish Amazon didn’t exist. I’ve been thinking more about that ONE person. The biggest mistake I’ve seen, in talking with different business, and even ministries, is that they really think what they have to offer is good for everyone. While that may be the case, they’ll never be noticed and picked up, their content might as well be spam. However, if they were to target so specifically and start out with a small niche, then they could pick up some traction. I’m also speaking to myself here, as this is what I’m currently working on. Anyway, thanks so much! Keep up the good work.

I particularly appreciate the distinction here between simple and easy. I think we intuitively conclude that anything that is easy is unlikely to provide lasting competitive advantage. But when you clarify that big marketing is simple but very difficult, we can better understand that few of our competitors will persist with the effort that it takes to understand our perfect customer and provide the small marketing package that is required to capture that customer.

Takin’ my hat off to you and Danny, Dan. I firmly believe in simplicity. Never adopted the “hard work” concept –Not sure if it worked against me all these years– but now more than ever I aspouse WISE WORK. I’m applying wisdom to what I know and do.